


ƓŁɪŤㄈн

by Unceasing



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, I am so sorry, M/M, Sadstuck, open for intrepretation relationships, why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-16 21:57:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2285829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unceasing/pseuds/Unceasing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You knew this was going to happen someday. It was only natural -- you all broke the game. When everyone was so caught up in it, trying to win and save everyone, it was easy to forget that it was really <i>just a game.</i> An intricate, extremely well-designed and complex game, but still a game none the less. </p><p>Human hubris was a dangerous thing. Especially when you slide the fate of the world on a couple of teenagers' shoulders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. dire

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my. I...I have not written anything since March. But my, have I tried. Ever set out to write anything, but everything you type just seems wrong? 
> 
> So this was my attempt to alleviate this dreadful writer's block. Forgive me...e e; ♥ 
> 
> (also the next chapter of this will be much longer.)

_It’s funny, so laugh._

It is with trembling fingers that you trace over his cheek, his skin, his body. Your black-lined lips are thin, neutral, neither smiling nor frowning, and your violate gaze steady. Everything about you is the perfect picture of perfection. Composure. Absolute control.

Except for your shaking.

Your blonde hair is neat -- you made sure that you took the time to brush and style it accordingly -- and your clothes are smooth and fashionable. Favorable colors, too. You thought about donning some yellow, but decided against it. You felt more at home in the darker hues anyway -- purple and black. For kicks, you even added a splash of red. Your headband was red. Your shoes were red. The small ribbon on your left wrist, were red.

Even your nails were red. You had decided to take a moment to paint those as well when you woke up today. Though you did have to go through the trouble of taking off the previous coat of black that was on there. So your hands sort of smelled like nail polish remover and...well, nail polish.

You smile. Watching him, lying there, he looks so vulnerable. And it’s funny, really.

_It’s funny, so laugh._

He’s always so uptight -- so wound up, you would think that he was preparing for the exact moment that someone was going to jump out and attack him and try to kill him.

_It’s funny, so laugh._

But like this, lying there, it’s so different. Catching him with his guard down is pretty hard most of the time. He always had a strange way of even looking tense when he slept sometimes. As if, just knowing that someone was in the room, or that they might enter the room, was enough to keep him on a comatose high alert. Something like that seems like a bit of a contradiction, but, well.

Dave himself was a bit of a contradiction. A walking one, at that.

You wonder, briefly, if you should be touching him like this, when he is lying here like that. Probably not. Were he be aware of it, he would certainly scold you. Roll his eyes and demand that you get away, or even make some snide, sarcastic comment about you ‘never being able to get enough of him.’ For a kid who had some crippling self-worth issues, he sure did like to talk big. But that did sort of come with the territory sometimes.

_It’s funny, so laugh._

You were used to it by now though.

“Dave, you are such an idiot. I hope you know that,” you say, or mutter more likely, whilst pulling your hand back away from his cheek. It is perfectly smooth, and slightly obstructed from his shades slipping down his nose slightly. Carefully, you reach forward again and take a gentle hold of both sides of his shades, and pull them slowly from his face.

His eyes are still closed, of course, but with the glasses still on his face you couldn’t really tell for sure usually.

_It’s funny, so laugh._

Either way, you felt better with them out of the way. You set them down beside you, right by your right knee, one of which you were currently sitting on in your little kneeling position. Dave is still sprawled out haphazardly on the floor from the other night when he came to your place and crashed. You don’t dare move him.

Instead, you tilt your head back and stare at the ceiling, right at the light on your fan, stare until your eyes water and even then stare a little more,

and you laugh.

_It’s **fucking** funny, so laugh._

 

 

 

 

[ _r **e** w **i** n **d**_ ]


	2. ire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what happened but I think I hate it.  
> I am so sorry.
> 
> ( _i did say that this one would be longer though._ ♥)

 

[ _**d**_ _n_ _ **i**_ _w_ _ **e**_ _r_ ]

  


“This is fucking stupid, Rose. I have had it up to here. This shit is not funny anymore, and I’m not even sure if it even ever was in the first place. I am done. Beyond done. I want fucking out, and I want out now. I am tired of being stuck in this practically post-apocalyptic hell!”

You resist the urge to flinch when you hear the front door of your house swing open and then slam shut, and force your eyes to keep focused on your book. You know it’s Dave who just walked in. You knew it was Dave before he even started speaking. It wasn’t even because you recognized his gait from the sound, or something else equally stupid that really only happens in books or movies.

You knew it because there is no one else it could be. Everyone else was either a construct of the game, or dead.

You try not to let the thought bother you too much.

“Calm down. Getting worked up over it won’t solve anything. If anything, you would be more compelled to do something destructively impulsive, and it would serve no purpose other than hurting yourself and others.”

You hear him scoff, which is soon then followed by a small ‘thump’ against the wall, leading to a dragging noise that lets you know that he has probably slid down against the wall. You still don’t bother to look up at him.

“Others? _Others?_ Who are you kidding. We’re the only ones left. We’ve _been_ the only ones left. We’re stuck in some shithole dead end and I’m eighteen and it has been two years since everything went to shit and six since we even began this whole thing!”

“The sprites are still here.”

“Yours is a fucking purple cat and mine is a mute orange bird thing. I really don’t think they count at this point.”

Turning the page of your book, you make a small humming noise in response to his comment. What he said was true. Jaspers was hardly someone you could even _count_ as a someone, much less an actual person. Even if he was somewhat sentient. And Davesprite... Well, that was a whole other mess that neither of you would probably want to go into again.

It was a little sad, his situation. Davesprite’s. He abandoned his world line to enter yours and try and save you all after his best friends died. He thought yours would be better. The _Alpha Timeline,_ the one that was meant to succeed and flourish. And you all had thought so, too. You’d been so sure. Done everything right -- or at least, you tried.

You just, made the human mistake of trying to save everyone, when really, all you were meant to do was save yourselves.

So in the end, all he gained was watching the same friends die once again without him being able to do a thing, and this time around he didn’t have the free will to even try and do anything about it. He was stuck. Not even a person. Just a construct of a game that had fucked him over more times then he would probably like to admit.

Or maybe he finally had, and that was what had finally broken him. He refuses to speak now, to anyone. Were it not for the fact that he was a sprite, at the very least, he would have starved himself to death. Killed himself a thousand ways. But that was the funny thing about the Sprite’s programming -- it was just that. Programming. Even with implanted sentience, which was different from Jaspers automated one. There was no self-destruction code -- not unless something went wrong on a chemical level that threw the game out of balance.

You had heard about something like that happening twice to some of your troll friends, when they were still here. It was probably Davesprite’s final hope, as depressing as it was. But there was no joined conflict -- no battle of two minds. Just his own. And normal human emotions were not in the parameters for self-termination. Even more, because he was a sprite, the game would not simply let him end his life. It was in his code to survive.

You felt bad for him. Really. But at this point, he was beyond your help.

Also, you are pretty sure that he would not want to see you, anyways. You were just the shell of a girl that he used to know, back in his timeline. An emulation. A possible outcome for who she could have grown into.

An echo. A reminder.

“Well, you still have me. And I wouldn’t want you to go and do something stupid, Dave,” you say finally, shutting your book closed with a small ‘thump’ of the two sides coming together at the middle. When you glance over in Dave’s direction, you notice that he has, indeed, slid himself down against the wall by the door and sat down on the floor. His shades were ever equip, and though his face might be stone, you could see the way his eyebrows were furrowed below his hairline and the way his hands were squeezed into fists, his arms resting against his knees.

“I know, Rose. I know. I just, I don’t know what to do anymore. Everything is messing up, this world. We fucked up, and after so much time has passed, it’s starting to malfunction. And it’s terrifying. If you’re playing a normal video game and the game data gets corrupted -- for one reason or another -- you just turn it off and start over. Or maybe trash it if it’s bad enough. But here... You can’t even do that. We’re stuck in a nightmare glitched out world that won’t end. And it is fucking creepy.”

You laugh a bit, not because it’s funny or anything, but because what he says rings so true. That’s exactly what this is like. A glitched save file. One that was born out of trying to cheat.

You hadn’t meant to. Really. You were just trying to save everyone. You, Dave, John, Jade, and the trolls.

The trolls.

Another session.

Another game.

Another _existence._

In the end, everything just clashed and the data didn’t mesh. What resulted, was the game trying to access different bits of information, and coming back after retrieving the wrong data set. As a whole, your existences were not completely dominated by the game -- _completely._ So it wasn’t like something could just...go wrong, and delete you from existence like it could with the game-generated characters. A glitch wouldn’t just displace your arm, or your whole body. Those things were solid and tied to _you,_ not the data.

But everything else...

Stats, were digitalized. Scanned, processed, made into information. Your health -- your strength, your speech, your vision, your hearing. Your powers. Reaching God Tier, something that was supposed to protect you, and make you nigh invincible as long as you abided by the rules of no death being heroic or just. There were parameters set to determine those things. And with everything out of sync, those odds could go wrong, or even not trigger at all.

Everything was turned against you.

And Dave was right. It was terrifying.

“...I know.”

That was all you could say.

Your friends, they died at the hand of these unnatural malfunctions within the games code. Malfunctions that you all had inadvertently caused by beckoning the trolls into your session.

And they were the ones who had fallen first.

This was a session tailored to the human condition -- our needs were taken into effect, and everything was adjusted so we could survive. The air we breathe had been tailored for _our needs._ Oxygen, nitrogen, and small traces of other gases such as argon and methane and carbon dioxide. Our needs came first. We were the players. We were the ones meant to prosper.

With an Alien species...it was foolish of us to think that they would be the same as us. They may have served for our creation, sure, but it was not the same. Basic things like asking what they _breathed_ had never even crossed our minds. We knew that game sessions were different, sure, but we never really thought about _how much._

They were doomed from the moment they crossed over.

The moment Jade used her powers to open a gate for them to enter, we should have known. We. Should. Have. Known. When that portal opened, for a moment, the games over lapped. It probably didn’t know what to do. The air over from their side -- it was overpowering. Like swallowing pure acid into our lungs. We were in such a rush to get them over, that we didn’t _think._ Jade just screamed _Hold your breath!!_ and we all did, the four of us, and she teleported them all through at once, closed the bridge, and we all gasped in the sweet air that we had been deprived of for less than a minute.

We all smiled, ready to greet them, excitement building in our chests, but when we looked...

“ _They’re here, they’re really here! Oh my god, you guys--”_

_John’s voice was cut off abruptly. He had been staring at the three of you, Dave, Jade, and yourself, and when he turned back to the trolls..._

_The words just died._

_They were portaled in on their feet, but they dropped within moments. Where once smiles graced their faces, now held expressions of terror and fear._

_None of you understood. There wasn’t even time to react._

_It was when Terezi tore her glasses off her face and threw them to the side, that Dave moved into action and skidded to a kneel in front of her. John was second, making his way instantly to Karkat, and you rushing over to Kanaya’s side._

_The more you looked at her, the more you panicked. Your eyes were wide, looking over her, searching for some sort of wound -- but you found nothing._

“ _Kanaya? Kanaya. Tell me what’s wrong. Please. What’s going on? Are you hurt? Did something go wrong when you were teleported over? Say something, please.”_

_You sounded so calm. But your voice was shaking -- wavering, even if it remained even. Your hands were clammy and trembling as you hovered them over her body, which was writhing around on the ground. She looked... She looked like she was trying to scream, but nothing but air came out._

“ _Tz, yo, dude, what’s happening. C’mon man. Hey -- Hey, stop it, don’t claw at your eyes like that! You’ll tear the dame things out of your sockets!”_

 _You could hear Dave’s voice a bit to your side, but you couldn’t tear your eyes away from your friend. John was blubbering too, saying Karkat’s name over and over again, and you were at a_ loss.

“ _Kanaya please --”_

_It was at that moment, when you tried to speak, that suddenly the atmosphere around you seemed to shift and become thicker, and it once again felt like you were breathing in acid. Poison. Something unnatural. You choked, sputtered, tried to catch your breath as you doubled over in your already kneeling position with one hand palm-down on the ground, and the other gripping your burning throat with bulging eyes._

_It was also at the same moment that your ears picked up on the desperate gasps around you. You couldn’t see anymore -- your eyes were watering and it felt like they were boiling inside your skull so you had to close them, but you could hear the coughing and the pained sounds of relief and you just._

_You understood._

“ _W-What the ever-loving flying f-fuck was that shit?! It felt like my lungs and my whole goddamn body was about to fucking explode on a god-damn molecular level and what the absolute fuck is -- Shit! Shit, it’s the air! Oh my god. What the hell are we going to do? SGRUB is apparently such a magnificently glorious piece of shit that it can’t even regulate its air supply right! If it’s not them, it’s us, and if it’s us, it’s -”_

_Karkat didn’t even get to finish his thought before the air lightened again and you could suddenly breathe again, though your eyes still burned and you didn’t dare try and open them. You could feel something wet streaming down your cheeks, and you didn’t know if it was tears, or blood, and you didn’t even want to check._

_But you knew that what he said was right. Painfully right. Sburb was generated to accommodate players from one planet that had similar conditions to live under. General laws. It could differentiate the conditions between things like on land and under water, but it couldn’t shape singular areas around individual people._

_It couldn’t give both species the means to live. It would just confuse itself._

_And if it has to choose who to save, it would..._

_It would choose the original session players._

_The thought made your heart sink into your stomach, and to be quite honest, you felt sick. You righted yourself slowly back upright on your knees and raised a wavering hand, searching blindly for your alien friend in front of you. You touched down on what you assumed was the fabric of her shirt, then moved to the side until you felt the bump of her arm, and slid downwards until you felt the smooth skin of her hand._

_It was harder than your own -- smooth, but seemed far more tough then what human skin was made up of. You clenched your hand around hers, and she did the same._

_It was painful. You could feel her sharp nails digging into your skin, but you didn’t care. This was too much. Your eyes burned even more fiercely behind your eyelids, liquid-hot tears mixing with god knows what -- you were painfully aware that your eyes felt far less round against your eyelids -- but you couldn’t stop. Your sobs were tearing through your chest, cutting through the air, the stupid_ stupid _air, and you couldn’t stop._

 _You had spoken with these people for so long. You’d become so close, even if you had not had the chance to physically meet. There had always been that promise -- that_ promise _that you all would save them and build a new world for them, and yourselves._

_But instead you had killed them._

_It was slowly, one by one, that the choking sounds stopped. The struggling noises slowed. The painfully firm grip on your hand, laxed, and dropped._

_But what followed was not silence._

_Rather, the sobs of your three friends, you included, who were now all alone in a world that you all had finally realized, actually held your lives in its grasp._

_You were all murderers._

_And this mistake would cost you all your lives with the chain of events that you had set up._

... It wasn’t pretty.

 

* * *

 

 

“You know. Maybe things won’t be so bad. SBURB is a fairly advanced and intelligent game, after all. It has created universes -- I know that ours could not be the first one to ever prosper. There had to be others. It would simply be... Pretentious, to assume that we are special in the sense that we are the only ones who have ever done something that the game could not handle right away. So maybe there’s a chance that things could right themselves. Perhaps an auto-debugging program of some sorts? It could be running in the background right now, assessing the problem, and going through the steps to clear things out and make sure that everything goes as it should be.”

It had been a few hours since Dave had barged in through your door, and the two of you were now curled up against one another in your room, sitting on your bed while leaning against the wall with a blanket loosely wrapped around your backs. He seemed to have calmed down, somewhat, but what had replaced that burning panic was a dull sense of defeatism, and you are not sure which one you would actually prefer at the moment.

“Yeah, maybe. But what good would it do us? Even if this place righted itself...We would still be doomed. ‘ _The Heir is dead,’”_ He mocked, sneering slightly as he angled his head upwards. “That’s what Davesprite had said about the game that he had come from. ‘ _The Heir is dead.’_ The game couldn’t move forward after John died.”

You pause, pursing your lips somewhat. “But that was because no one could get Jade into the game. You need, at the very least, two players who can have the aspects of Space and Time. John didn’t die until much later -- Jade had plenty of time to get in, and even ascend.”

“Yeah, and where is she now? Dead. Remember _why you need a Space player in order to win?”_

“ _..._ Oh.”

You fall silent, mentally berating yourself for not making such an obvious connection. You don’t know where you brain is on most days anymore. You talk about being disheartened about Dave’s sudden change in moods, but you are just as bad. Sinking down into a pit and barely being kept above water by some weak, false optimism. You’re not sure how much longer either of you are going to last.

“Well...You could, you could always use your Time powers, right?” you start, reaching desperately in your mind for straws. “You could go back in time. Stop things from happening.”

You feel Dave stiffen at your side.

“And then what? Tell everyone _not_ to try and save our friends? Tell them that they need to sacrifice the others just so that they can be selfish and save themselves?”

Your lips form a thin line as you drop your gaze downwards, biting the inside of your cheek.

“...Even if I was okay with doing that, I wouldn’t be able to,” Dave continues on, his voice low and soft. “My Time powers aren’t exactly working correctly. I tried jumping back a few seconds just to see if they were affected, and ended up being thrown through a loop. Constantly teleported to the same spot over and over again before it finally spit me out somewhere else. Even then, I figured that maybe it was just because I tried going back to a time that was already bugged. So in a last ditch effort, I tried going back to right before Jade had opened that stupid portal. Couldn’t even make it. Got an alert or something saying that it didn’t exist.”

“You know, you could have gotten stuck there. If you knew your powers were bugged, why did you try something like that?”

“I was desperate. You can’t tell me you didn’t try something similar with your own.”  
  
“That’s not fair. Mine work differently. Light is a passive aspect. And Seer is a passive class. Both your class and title are active. Something could have seriously gone wrong, and you could have ended up just like John.”

_You could have ended up dead, and you would have left me alone._

Dave makes a small grunting noise, and lowers himself more into the blankets. The death of your friends... It is something that you try to avoid thinking about now. It was hard not to, when it first happened. But after two years...

It is not as though you can say that the pain has lessened anymore then when it first took place. But you can say that it lead to your eventual desensitization from it.

“Maybe that would have been a good thing...” You hear him murmur, one of his hands raising up to run itself through his hair. You decide not to comment on it, opting for silence.

You’re not sure what you would do if Dave left you, too. In the back of your mind -- the part where the Alter Rose resides from Davesprite’s timeline -- you can remember the painful loneliness that had accompanied her -- you -- after Dave went back in time. You are not sure you want to go through something like that first hand. The echo of the feeling was bad enough. The real thing just might be the one event that would drive you over the edge.

Or maybe it wouldn’t. You remember when John died, how badly it had hurt you. All of you. Even worse that it was over something so... So incredibly stupid. You honestly cannot even believe it happened. It was an eye opener, though. It was what made you all realize that you all had to be really careful about a lot of the things that you had gotten used to doing in this universe -- anything could turn on you. Even the things that you had accepted as being a part of yourself.

It wasn’t even something that was dramatic or anything. For all that John was, you figured that if he was going to go out... He was going to go out with a bang. Like in that other universe. He had died when he skipped a bunch of gates and fought his denizen when he was too weak. It may have been mostly in secret, but it was still a way to go. Crushed by a giant monster. Something that was pretty believable in an environment like this.

But this time around?

He fell to his death.

John was the first one to ascend and gain flight -- excluding Jade, who had been flying around for quite some time, but only through her Dreamself. But he had the most time to get used to it, to integrate it into being a part of him that was as common as walking or running. You do it without thinking. You knew the feeling as well, after ascending and getting used to the feeling of flight. It really does just feel like another thing that you do naturally, without thinking about it.

So a few days after the whole...situation, with the trolls had happened, he decided that he needed a break to get away from all of the depressing atmosphere that seemed to be surrounding all of you. Naturally, being that his aspect was Breath, and that symbolized freedom, he felt most at ease up in the sky. So of course, that was where he took to.

He didn’t even get very far. He was well within all of our sights the whole time. We saw him fall, but we didn’t think anything of it. We just turned our heads away.

It wasn’t like we were ignoring him or anything. And falling from the sky wasn’t exactly anything new. It was something we all had done from time to time; like free-falling without a parachute. It was like a small adrenaline kick.

So it wasn’t until we heard a sudden desperate yell for help that we realized something was wrong.

John might not have been able to get too far, he was still within eye sight, but the ground he had covered was too much for us to be able to reach by normal means, given the speed he was dropping. Jade was the first one to react; she was on her feet in a heartbeat, and was teleporting a bed from one of the rooms inside the house to under where he was, enlarging it somewhat. Had we been in our own universe, on Earth, such a tactic would never work even if it was possible. Too high, too fast, even a bed would leave a devastating impact. But SBURB had toughened you all up and worked you into what you can only call ‘video game mechanics.’ So the bed would have saved him. There was no reason for it not to -- it had worked countless times before. It was like beds here were catch-all saviors.

But for some reason, things didn’t quite go right. You don’t know what happened. It never appeared. you all saw the green glow from the corners of our eyes from the house, and Jade said she felt the weight of the object, but it wouldn’t appear. And John was falling fast.

So she tried again, with another bed, hoping --

His cry for help wasn’t even the last thing you had all heard. It was the sickening crunch.

Dave was instantly all in arms ready to teleport, we could see it, but Jade’s arms were instantly on his, begging him not to do it, begging him not to use his powers, yelling that if he tried to interact with them something might go wrong and begging us all to just go to where he was, normally, no powers or anything.

You were all too shocked to think anything else, so you ran. As fast as you could, as quick as you had ever moved before.

When you got to where John was, you felt sick. You had all seen some messed up things from the game, but seeing your best friend laying in a broken mess like he was thrown haphazardly onto the ground...it was sickening.

Dave was stiff. It was only his frantic breathing from running that alerted you to his presence. Jade was crying, having dropped down to her knees beside John, hands hovering over him but never touching him. You just... You said nothing. All you could do was stare. Your best friend was now a disjointed mess of blue and red.

“ _What if he does not wake up?! This stupid game is screwing everything up! The air for the trolls, my space powers -- John’s flight! What if something went wrong with the healing and reviving thing of our god-tiers?! There was nothing heroic or just about this death but what if something goes_ wrong _and he doesn’t come back?!”_

 _You took another look at John, one of your best friends and literally one of the other three people in your whole universe, and you think about the idea that he might not come back. You saw him stabbed in front of you before. That was a rage you had never experienced before. But when you look now, everything is different. Your heart feels_ heavy. _Harder than it did when you saw your mother lying there, dead._

_Now it was John. And he wasn’t just stabbed once or twice. He was crushed. Broken, and twisted. That was your friend lying there. And he might not ever come back._

_It’s that last thought that makes your heart drop farther into your stomach, and it’s too much. Within a second your turning away from the scene and leaning forward, splattering your lunch onto the ground. You hadn’t noticed you were shaking. You hadn’t noticed much of anything, besides your stark realization that Jade might be right. You heave again, and after a moment you feel a hand gently pressing against your shoulder, spreading onto the back of your neck. You know it’s Dave without looking because you can still hear Jade crying._

_You sort of want to scream yourself._

“ _We’ll wait a bit. He’ll come back. Don’t worry. John wouldn’t be done in by something like that.”_

_Dave’s voice was even and steady, and you couldn’t read a thing from his face. In a way, you think you were glad. Especially for those glasses._

_Because had you been able to see his eyes, you’re afraid of the painful sadness you would have been able to see that were clearly echoed in all of you._

_So you just nod, wipe your mouth and take a deep breath before turning and kneeling by Jade’s side. She throws herself into your arms and you hug her, gently, compared to her tight grip. But you don’t mind. You just want everything to work out. This isn’t even about winning the game anymore. You just want all of your friends in one piece._

It was after a week had passed that you all agreed that he wouldn’t return. You all probably knew it before then, you know you did, but you held onto hope. It was only a week later that someone actually voiced it.

The people who made up your tiny universe were dying off like flies.

“Y’know. I wonder if the trolls were here, if we could have figured something out. Like the techy smart one, Sollux. He built the game, right? Maybe he would have been able to fix the problem here.”

Dave’s voice brings you back out from your thoughts, and you can feel the gentle air of his breath tickling the side of your neck. You finger the side of your cell phone -- you don’t know why you bothered to reverse alchemize it besides the fact that you wanted something familiar -- and flip the small device around in your hands before responding.

“Well, he didn’t completely build it. More like, he arranged the pieces together. But I do wonder that same thing. At the same time, though...If he _was_ able to adjust things in the game, couldn’t he have just opened a new way for his friends to win by themselves? Like adjusting win conditions.”

You feel Dave shift beside you, and you turn to see him press the back of his head against the wall, sighing in the process. You kind of hate this. No matter what one of you say, there is always something to go against it. Even in hypothetical situations.

Almost like there is no hope for you left anywhere. You hate that thought. _Seer of Light._ By definition, you are supposed to be able to see/understand luck/knowledge. Yet it has gotten you nowhere. If this is what your power defines, then should you also be able to recognize when everything is lost? You have the knowledge. You can understand the situation. Are you just running away, by avoiding saying that you are all doomed?

You feel more like a Hope and Doom player at the moment. Hope is lost and you are all Doomed.

You chuckle a little bit, and you can see Dave turning to look at you out of the corner of your eye. It’s sort of funny. Had you said that out loud any time earlier, you can almost guarantee that everyone would tell you that this was just coming out because you were spending too much time in the Eldritch lore. And that was just when you were mindlessly saying things without really believing that everything was necessarily completely lost.

Now, however, with just two of you left, you fear that instead of rebelling against the statement, you would instead find that you both agree.

So you keep your mouth closed on the matter.

“You know, I think this all would be at least a bit more bearable if we were still able to drift within the dream bubbles. Even if everyone was dead, and they weren’t all the same people that we had grown used to, they were at least someone. To talk to. Like we weren’t all fucking ass-deep alone in this place.”

You press your phone to light, sifting through some of the messages in there. “I agree. As much as I love you, dear brother, other company would be much appreciated.”

Dave snorts beside you, and you can practically feel him rolling his eyes. You do love Dave. But you do, at the same time, wish you could see other people. Not because he isn’t enough, but because you don’t want to feel completely alone.

At another time in life, you thought you were okay with solitude. You thought you could deal with it. But now, with it staring you down in the face, you don’t think that you can deal with it and be comfortable with it...Not after you have gotten a taste of what it is like to physically be around people who care about you more than themselves, and not in a sarcastic or shallow sense. People that actually, genuinely care.

You sort of feel for where Jade was coming from, a little bit, even if you can probably never understand completely. She had basically grown up alone, and this game was the first time that she had been around other people her age...Or people in general, that weren’t a parental figure. There was a lot about her that let that fact shine through. But to her credit, she was always still a lovable person. You couldn’t help but just...gravitate towards her. John and her had that in common. Despite their flaws and shortcomings, you couldn’t seem to keep away from them for very long.

Funny that the two of them had so much in common that it even extended to their death.

Jade didn’t die the same way that John did, or anything. You had all, by that point, decided that flying was a bad idea. And if you did, it was never high enough that the fall could kill you, or even seriously cause harm. You were all the last ones left -- none of you wanted to die, and leave the others alone. You couldn’t rely on the game keeping you all alive with your god-tier status anymore.

But at the same time, there were still risks that all of you felt needed to be taken. All hope hadn’t been lost, at that point. And Jade was a big driving factor behind that faith. Though you still hadn’t figured out anything that you could try at that point.

But there were still dream bubbles. You all could still see the friends that you had lost while you dreamed. And they helped -- a lot. The three of you might have been the only ones truly _alive,_ but the ghosts were...sentient, and identical copies to those you had lost. They helped you keep going. And the thought behind talking to them all, besides the comfort factor, was that maybe you all could somehow try and figure out a way out. No one was selfish enough to deny helping, even knowing that there was a chance that they might not get out as well. You all promised that you would try, though. And you meant it. You would try to get as many people out as you could.

It never crossed your mind that the dream bubbles could be a problem. It was again, foolishly something that you had taken for granted without thinking of the implications that came with having a broken game. In hindsight, you should have known.

When you were dreaming and navigating the dream bubbles, it wasn’t like controlling your actual ‘dream selves’ that were on Derse and Prospit respectively. Your dream selves had their own mind, and their own will, even when _you_ are awake. And when you slept, it was akin to seeing through their eyes. Your original mind and soul were still in your original body.

But when dreaming through the dream bubbles... Things were a bit different. Normal dreams are fine. Your mind just sort of wanders within itself and makes things out of nothing. But at the end of the day, it was just thoughts. But when you _physically manifested_ inside a _physical construct_ that the game _physically conjured,_ things are naturally a bit different.

Your mind and soul connect. Not even connect. There is a straight-up _transfer_ going on. Which under normal circumstances would not be a problem. Your mind and soul are naturally more deeply-connected to your physical body. So whenever you woke up, everything was called back to the original source. If anything shocked you, then you were pulled back to your body. Like a bungee cord or something. A fail-safe so you wouldn’t get stuck.

Jade...

Jade was the one who realized that things didn’t work that way anymore, in this new world that everything went wrong in. You and Dave do not even really know what wrong. Not really, not for sure. You were both awake, while she was asleep.

All you really know is that one day, she never woke up, and that the dream bubbles were gone. If you thought John’s was an anti-climatic death, then Jade’s took the cake with that. It bothers you, not knowing what exactly happened. A best friend gone without any answers. It leaves a giant, gaping hole of ‘what if’s’ that you don’t think will ever go away. You have theories, speculations, but you will never know for sure. The only thing you know is that everything that made Jade _Jade_ was gone before her heart finally stopped beating.

“And then there were two...” You murmur. Before long you feel Dave’s hand snake around your own, and you lean to the side again to lay against his shoulder. He has your right hand, and in your left is your phone.

You have so many pictures in here of the four of you. Always smiling. Laughing. Scowling in stupidity or rolling your eyes at the insanity. Memories of things that were supposed to always make you happy, that you could talk to one another about with ‘remember when’s’ that would make you all recall how crazy things got, but bond over the fact that everyone made it out all right.

Instead you have a collage of scenes that you will never be able to look at the same again.

You drop the phone and equip your God Tier hood, pulling it up and letting it drape over your eyes. Whatever you feel trailing down your cheek aren’t tears. If anything, they’re regrets.

Maybe you can get them all out of you this time around so you will never have them again.

 

* * *

 

 

“There has to be something we can do, Rose. I can’t stand just sitting here like this and doing nothing! We’ll go mad, at this rate,” Dave seethes, pacing the room as he runs a hand through his blond hair. It’s a nervous tick that the both of you share, as much as you both try and refrain from doing it.

“I know, Dave. I know. But I don’t know what. We’re practically stuck as normal kids now, and I’m not sure what we can do to try and advance...”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the _Seer?_ Think of something! You have luck and knowledge on your side, so how can you be telling me that you _don’t know? You always know!”_

You swallow thickly, standing awkwardly with your arms crossed over your chest as Dave walks around the room. You can’t see his eyes, but you can see the way his brows are low and furrowed together, and the way his jaw is clenched and it bothers you. The two of you are losing yourself more and more and becoming something you never wanted to be. The situation at hand is picking you both apart.

“But I am not omnipotent. I do not have _all the answers._ I am human, Dave. I can only work with what I am given.”

Dave stopped in his place, swinging his arm to the side and slamming his fist against the doorway. “That has never stopped you before! Don’t give me that bullshit!” His head snaps in your direction, staring at you, before angling it a bit to the side. “...Shit.”

Your arms tense a bit, and you inadvertently hug them a bit closer to you. “...I know. I am trying. I am wracking my brain and I am _trying,_ and I will think of something. Give me _time._ I will think of something, I do not know what, but it will be something. So just, hold on. Things will work out. They will...”

You don’t know when, but at some point Dave had made his way across the room to you and had gripped you by your upper arms. You could still feel some of the heat radiating off his hand from the blood rushing to it, and all you could do was stare up at him, eyes slightly wide.

“Shit...I’m sorry, Rose. I’m sorry.” His grip on you tightens somewhat, his fingers pressing into you, but you don’t make a sound. “I’m not mad at you. Fuck, I’m not even upset at you. I’m just...frustrated at this whole situation. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. Don’t freak out, or anything, okay? I’ll chill. We can’t both be losing our shit here.”

“I am not ‘freaking out,’ Dave. I am fine. Do not worry abou-”

“Cut the shit, Rose. I’ve known you long enough. You might not yell and throw things and hit things, but it is pretty easy for me to catch when you are starting to lose your cool. It’s like your eyes glaze over and you start talking without contractions like you did when we first met.”

You stay silent for a moment, because you can’t really think of something to say. It’s a little embarrassing for Dave, of all people, to call you out on these things. Not because he is oblivious or unintelligent, but mostly because you should be above this. You’re eighteen and you are old enough to not lapse into acting like a child.

“...I know. I am--I’m sorry.”

Dave sighs, and his grip loosens to almost nothing; him dropping down to his knees, and his hands slipping down to loosely hold yours above the wrists.

“I love you, Rose. But shit. I don’t...I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

You kneel down in front of him, and lean your head forward so that you can press your forehead against his. “I know. It--It’s okay. No one would blame you. I wouldn’t blame you. It’s okay.”

You close your eyes and intertwine your fingers with his, squeezing his hands gently. You hear him inhale sharply, followed by a slow, shaky exhale, and you wonder if this is it. If this is how far the two of you are able to go.

No one says anything. You both of you just stay like that, together, taking comfort in each other as the last two beings in existence.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This...was supposed to be a _very different story._ I have no idea where this thing spawned from. e e;; ...
> 
>  **Fun Fact:** Rose does the same thing I do when I freak out, which is lapse into a rather ‘formal’ speech pattern. I have a weird headcannon that, before Rose met Dave, John, and Jade, she stuck with this way of speech because it ‘made the most sense.’ She didn’t pick up slang and start utilizing contractions until she started hanging around her three main friends more.


	3. rid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **[ insert anti-climactic end here ]**

 

[ _r_ _ **e**_ _w i_ _ **n d **_]

 

“What are you doing?”

You step into the guest bedroom of your house -- the room that Dave had been using for quite some time to crash in -- and see Dave sitting on the floor, leaning back against the side of the bed. The two of you thought it was a good place to set up in -- Dave’s place was too small, and the two of you wouldn’t dare try and touch Jade and John’s place. So this was the next best thing. Besides, you both knew the layout well enough. You from living there, and Dave for being your server player back in the very beginning.

“Nothing. Well, preparing, I guess. You know how it is.”

You do.

It does not mean it still doesn’t make your stomach drop at the mere thought of it, much less the sight.

“I see. What do you have? I doubt you could have alchemized something like that. Or, I guess you could, but I would imagine that it would be quite hard to be able to replicate, especially with how unpredictable things are now.”

Dave tosses you a look, smirking faintly. It’s more bitter than amused, and very dry. You simply arch an eyebrow in response. “They’re Bro’s. Had issues sleeping. We didn’t exactly have insurance, he thought it was stupid, and that makes sense seeing as he knew the game was going to happen. So he bought bottles of this shit and just stockpiled it, using it when he needed it. Y’know if it were anyone else, I’d say he was completely addicted or some shit.”

You nod, laughing a little bit. “If your brother was a drug addict, it would certainly explain his unpredictable behavior.”

Dave chuckles as well, flipping a small, orange bottle up in the air and catches it. “Yeah, probably. But I dunno, pulling off half of the sick shit he did would be pretty damn difficult if he was constantly sedated out the ass.”

“Yeah, that is true.”

You smile a bit, but it wavers slightly when you watch as Dave pops open the child proof cap with his finger and dumps one of the small, circular white pills onto his palm. He stares at it for a moment before popping it back into his mouth, and taking a quick swig of apple juice.

He makes a face.

“Shit, I have always hated taking pills. It tastes gross. It feels gross. It’s gross.”

“Yeah. My mother would swallow them dry, and I never understood how she could do it.”

You watch as Dave pours more into his hand, pops them in his mouth, takes a drink, and repeats the process. You try and tell yourself that you are okay with this. That it’s fine. That he isn’t just popping pills like candy.

You were never very good at lying to yourself. You aren’t suddenly going to get better, either.

“You know, you don’t have to watch this. I wouldn’t want to watch it. It’s depressing as fuck.”

You look at him, and for a moment, contemplate taking him up on his offer and walking out of the room. But you soon realize that you can’t. This is probably the last time you will be able to speak to him.

So instead, you walk over to where he is and push him over a little bit, which does cause him to scootch, and you plop down beside him.

“It is fine. Were this the other way around, your sentimental ass probably would not want to leave my side, either.”

You watch as Dave snorts out a laugh, and once again pops another pill in his mouth. “Shut up. Not the point.”

Drink.

Swallow.

You look at the bottles of pills and apple juice that are littered beside him. It makes you a bit sick just realizing that all of those are going to be inside him, and that they will be the things that kill him. Tiny, little white pills. Capable of ending his life.

You never imagined you would be sitting here, watching, as someone you care about ends their life this way. You never imagined you would just let them. You never imagined this ever even being a possible outcome.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Pop.

Drink.

Swallow.

 

Pop.

Drink.

Swallow.

 

Repeat.

Repeat.

_Repeat._

“I love you, Dave.”

Repeat.

“Love you too, Rose.”

 

_Repeat._

 

* * *

 

 

“...I feel sick.”

A half an hour had passed since Dave had downed about three bottles in about two minutes. You had spoken for a while, but eventually, had fallen into a rather strange silence.

“Should I move you to the bathroom?”

“...No. That would be stupid and the dancing would still go on.”

You blink, confused, turning to look at him. He looks normal, with his glasses on, but you can see the way Dave rocks slightly even just leaning against the bed.

“...I see.”

He doesn’t say anything more. You don’t ask.

 

* * *

 

 

“The light’s being weird.”

“Perhaps you should close your eyes?” You offer, glancing at him through the corner of your eye.

“No. That... Shadows are still there.”

You don’t question it. Instead, you lean closer to him from the side and gently press a kiss to his temple.

“ _You will be okay.”_

It’s a lie and you know it. If he were aware, he would know it, too.

 

* * *

 

“Nngh...This hurts. So fuckin’ bad.”

Blinking a few times, you glance down at Dave, who is currently laying sideways with his head on your lap. His hands are crossed over his stomach, pressed there tightly, and you didn’t know something like sleeping pills would cause pain. You thought it would be quick and painless.

“Hm...I am not sure what to do about that...” You murmur quietly, lifting your right hand and place two fingers on the side of his neck, searching for his pulse. You find it, and notice that it is slower then you have ever heart it. Your face remains impassive, but the sinking feeling in your gut doesn’t go away. His breathing is even slow. You wonder how much longer he will last.

“Hey,” you say, softly. “Sit up for a moment, please? Let me see your eyes.”

It seems to take him several moments to register what you said, but he does eventually make his way into a sitting position -- clumsily, and awkwardly, with a lot of fumbling around. If this were brought on by any other situation, you might laugh at his lack of grace.

Shifting your weight around, you raise your right leg and swing it over his hips; your left one staying on his other side, as you hover above his lap. Carefully, you take hold of the side of his shades and pull them off the front of his face.

You can’t help but be a bit surprised at what you see.

You’ve seen Dave’s eyes before -- you’ve known they were red.

But you’ve never noticed just _how red they were._

Like this, from what you can only assume is the drugs influence, his pupils are completely restricted, letting the red iris inflame his eyes in a sea of red. It’s unnatural, but you can only stare at the beauty of it. Lit alive like a flame.

“Shit...R’se, ‘s bright, fuck,” you hear Dave groan out, raising a shaky arm to try and blot his eyes away from the light

“Shoot, I’m sorry, I didn’t think about that-”

“M’ve,”

“What-”

You didn’t have time to piece together what Dave was saying before you hear a small ‘ _urrp’_ bubble up from his throat, immediately followed by his front lurching forward as a wet, dry heave passes through him. Quickly, you move yourself back beside him with a hand on his back, using your other to slip his shades back over his clenched-shut eyes.

You hear him gag again, another wet ‘ _bluurgh’_ before he retches again, dry, and this time you grab the waste bin besides the nightstand and press it in front of him. Not a moment later, because immediately after you see Dave take a quick, shaky breath before stiffening, and a choked ‘ _uurrghhh’_ trails through the room as previously ingested apple juice splashes in the white container. You feel a bit sick yourself, but you remain there, you hand tracing small circles on the lower half of Dave’s back.

He finishes not long after, and you carefully take the bin and set it on the other side of him. He says nothing, only letting out a quiet whine as he leans back against the bed, breathing slowly. You gently guide him back down on his side, his head resting on your lap, and you run your hand through his hair.

“...You’ll be okay soon.”

The only reply you get is a quiet noise accompanied by his soft breathing.

 

* * *

 

“Dave?”

No response.

“...Okay.”

You stare at the ceiling.

 

* * *

 

“I love you.”

You press your lips against his forehead and carefully slide out from under him, snatching a pillow from the top of the bed and placing it where you previously were.

You glance at him, before turning around and exiting the room and quietly shutting the door behind him.

You need to sleep.

You don’t know what you’ll do tomorrow. But you need to sleep.

Your friends are dead.

You’ll deal with it in the morning.

There isn’t anything you can do, now. So for now, you’ll sleep, so for just a bit you can pretend that everything is a bad dream.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahahah what is this what is even life what have i done.
> 
> Yes I do know what Dave took. But it was not important. (also on this i would like to note that whilst on the _normal dose_ for this crap, I was so sure I saw a whole dance-act going on _inside of my salad bowl._ that will never cease to be funny for me. ever. (seriously i even took a picture of it i was so sure it was there. its still in my phone. occasionally people question it. i laugh.))
> 
> I was endlessly amused that _rewind_ had the word _die_ in it that it became a story-motif for the chapter titles as well. I am lame and I love it. ♥
> 
> *shameless* if you R&R me, I will R&R you. 8D
> 
> One day I will stop torturing my characters. One day I will stop killing them.  
> Today is not that day, my friends. ♥


End file.
